The Human Race Came Close to Extinction in Prehistoric Times


Embracing broader scientific perspectives and new technology-based tools, researchers have started to more effectively contrast and relate the research and discoveries of various scientific fields.

A new hypothesis has emerged that suggests that the human race very nearly met with extinction approximately 71,000 years ago. 

In fact, it is believed that all but the Neanderthal and modern human lineage went extinct. What was the cause? A “volcanic winter” brought on by the colossal and catastrophic eruption of Mount Toba in Sumatra. (Estimated at 3,000 times greater energy than the Mt. St .Helens eruption of 1980.)

Plumes of ash blasted into the atmosphere blocked out the sun, triggering a “volcanic winter” that lasted roughly six years and plunged the planet into a 1,000 year long Ice Age (estimated to be the coldest Ice Age to ever have occurred on Earth).

The “volcanic winter” created widespread drought and famine and brought death to the human populations around the world and also greatly affected hominid stem-line evolution. Scientists refer to the evolutionary impact as “the bottle neck effect.” The implication is that the rapid and dramatic decrease in human populations brought about a rapid differentiation (or genetic divergence) within the surviving populations.

As conditions slowly improved, the surviving human populations were able to grow once more and develop with some of the genetic differences we see today.

According to this new scientific hypothesis, mankind was reduced to a sobering and frightening level. Estimates suggest a population as low as a mere 15,000 people existed across the entire planet.

Genetic evidence available today suggests that all living humans, regardless of apparent diversity, are descendants of a very small population of no more than 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs. Evidence also suggests that climate improvements initially occurred around the equator and that when the human race started to re-populate, it fanned out from Africa and then into Asia and Europe.